A limited constitutional government calls for a rules-based, freemarket monetary system, not the topsy-turvy fiat dollar that now exists under central banking. This issue of the Cato Journal examines the case for alternatives to central banking and the reforms needed to move toward free-market money.

The more widespread use of body cameras will make it easier for the American public to better understand how police officers do their jobs and under what circumstances they feel that it is necessary to resort to deadly force.

Americans are finally enjoying an improving economy after years of recession and slow growth. The unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is expanding, and public confidence is rising. Surely our economic crisis is behind us. Or is it? In Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner examines the growing national debt and its dire implications for our future and explains why a looming financial meltdown may be far worse than anyone expects.

The Cato Institute has released its 2014 Annual Report, which documents a dynamic year of growth and productivity. “Libertarianism is not just a framework for utopia,” Cato’s David Boaz writes in his book, The Libertarian Mind. “It is the indispensable framework for the future.” And as the new report demonstrates, the Cato Institute, thanks largely to the generosity of our Sponsors, is leading the charge to apply this framework across the policy spectrum.

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Incumbency as a Special Interest

My response:
With the American public, especially the long unemployed, clamoring for ever-more campaign finance regulations, you’d think that passage of the Democrat’s DISCLOSE Act would be a piece of cake. Yet the party that perfected the politics of special interests is coming up short in its effort to pass a measure they claim will protect us from special interest politics. The ironies are endless.

Take the most obvious: Notwithstanding its purported purpose, this bill is replete with carve-outs for special interests, from the NRA to the Sierra Club and far beyond. The special treatment of unions is of course a dead giveaway about the real motives behind the bill. Then there’s the bill’s failure to preserve the anonymity of small donors – nominally the constituency of Democrats, and the people campaign finance “reform” purports to protect through its myriad “leveling” provisions – the chilling effects of which have contributed to the ACLU’s opposition to the bill. And speaking of chilling effects, disclosure aside, the onerous reporting requirements alone will chill the speech of many.

But perhaps the greatest irony of all concerns the conflict of interest that pervades such legislation. Here we have a party that will assiduously sniff out any conceivable conflict of interest that a business might have calling for more regulations, the effect of which will make it harder for opponents to challenge their incumbency. Talk about a conflict of interest – incumbents writing the rules under which challengers and their supporters may speak in upcoming elections. The First Amendment – “Congress shall make no law …” – was written to prohibit that kind of self-dealing.